Deus ex machina. For Coren Starchaser, that meant not using one of his primary abilities and instead doing things in the manual way, the way her preferred to work. He was able to sense the Force, even it came in all sorts of chattered and shuffled. Like a conversation after the two involved split a bottle of 1800. You knew something was there, but you started to lose a bit of focus. And it became blurry, the edges blending. What he did know was enough that he needed to get Chevu moving.
Something was coming.
Hear what? He looked at her, about to call her something of a slur for still using his rank when they were not here as an Alliance team. But he wasn’t able to get it out. The room started to fade away. Chevu was still there, but she was not.
You’re dreaming.
Coren could see everything vividly. The fact that all he was putting into the galaxy in vain. Starfighters, X-Wings, exploding, cruisers crashing into a planet. What planet was that? He could see it, from the cockpit and pilot’s seat of his freighter.
That was Sullust.
Those ships were the One Sith.
Now is not your time, Starchaser. Said another voice. A former teacher of his, back before this edition of Coren, back before the shades of gray took over the galaxy, back when the Sith were always bad, the Empire was bad, and the Alliance was good. Back when the Empire was realizing the Sith were bad, and were working to stop them. Using people like Coren, trained as a Dark Jedi, to hunt down the Sith.
Not my time? He asked the man in black, the one with the hood up, and the red blade on display. Coren had his viridian crystal out, and was looking back at the man. The air was dry, carbonite plant. Cloud City? No. Coren had not been to Bespin until after his meeting Rekha Kaarde. This was somewhere else.
That was when the Force hit him in the chest. Pushing down. He attempted to teleport himself out of the hole, but the Sith was standing over him, pinning him down with the Force, ripping his lightsaber out of his hand.
Your destiny lies in another time was the last thing the Sith said to him. The last thing Coren had forgotten about his old life.
Shuffle
He was back in his freighter, watching the ships burn, the backdrop of Sullust being appropriate for what the Sith were doing to the galaxy and to the Alliance. Was there nothing that could stand against them? Was his whole approach here a waste of time? Of energy? Was he setting people up for their death?
The calls came on the comlink, Red group working to move out, the numbers too much, Tiburons fighting to the last flight of fighters, the Tyrene had been blown up. The cruiser Coren had been using as his flagship, grown attached to was in flames.
He could even feel Crosscurrent, working to pick up the Pulsar and get out of the system. She was aflame, she was screaming in pain.
Coren turned the freighter towards the landing craft, that emptiness he associated with the Dreadguard, heading to the planet. One last stand?
Was it worth it?
Shuffle
The galaxy was in flame.
There was nothing to stop it.
Coren was alone. The freighter the last ship to make it away from Sullust.
Now where was he supposed to go.
Shuffle
Back in the building. Coren was on his knees. The visions of the past, the visions of the future in his head. He could feel the deaths. He was not one to sense an individual in the Force, why could he fraking feel the deaths? Men and women he had served with, learned to trust, falling under the might of the One Sith fleet.
Where was there to go? He was not going to be of use on Sullust. He was in space. And it seemed darker, more desolate. Was there any refuge?
Any safe port?
Shuffle
Another dreamscape, another world hitting the pilot’s mind. Cue into the planet, the prisons, Chevu Visz opening the cell, of the one she was so affectionately calling Gabriel. He stepped out into the hall, looking as the oncoming Sith were dropping guards, extinguishing the light side on their way after his student, his protégée. The one he had been calling a Sith, because in every fiber in the Corellian’s being, he was calling this a con, had stepped out, only to quell the Sith. What was he doing?
Was that the Force? Biots going rogue. The symbiotic relations between Sith and amphistaff arms, gone wrong. The Force glowing with light as Gabriel stepped into the fray, turning the tide.
Was Coren wrong?
Shuffle.
There was the pilot again, on the floor, struggling, lashing out, reaching to the Force.
You’re in a dream.
Was he? Or was that another trick?
